fracturing
by sea-salt kisses
Summary: For it's the way of the universe, for her to follow in his footsteps. — Dawn, Pearl/Barry, Cyrus


Dawn grows up alone, in a town where wind whistles through flower boxes beneath perfectly polished sills; where the sun peels her skin and the clouds waltz across the sky. She's quick to learn that she's nothing like the others, who like the status quo of a town nestled at the foothills of greatness. She has a mother and a best friend and a television set, but who ever heard of a champion from Twinleaf, anyhow?

There's little doubt in her mind that without Pearl, she'd go insane, because he's the only one who truly understands her. They spend crisp evenings outdoors, lounged on his mother's quilts to label the constellations and talk about the future. He's like her, with an overbearing mother and a non-existent father figure, though when she mentions this he stiffens and slugs her shoulder, almost enough to _hurt_. Dawn has never met Pearl's father, but she hopes the man he goes on about is real, and not another one of his fantasies. Dawn loves Pearl, she really does, but on some level, she can never trust him. He's always so far away, talking of space and mountaintops and the supernatural, when she's content to stay grounded, and she tells no one, because her conservative mother would drag them apart.

In the beginning, it's Pearl who shoves her from the security blanket of home and into the wild, where there's no Prince Charming to k.o. the starly that flock just beyond the town limits. It's Pearl who rips the cords that chain her wings down, Pearl who knocks her from the nest, and she has no choice but to fall or fly. Deep down, she wonders why he's so driven to be the best, but chalks it up as pent up ambition. She grips the pokeball containing piplup closer to her chest when he flees all they've ever know, his frantic footfalls kicking up all manner of dust and ruckus as he leaves, escapes, without even the slightest glance back.

But she dulls the ache by convincing herself that she's used to it by now – all her life, she's chased after fairy tales and the zigzags of his footprints.

* * *

><p>They collide in Jubilife, and his grin is Cheshire, a crooked parenthesis across his face. It sets her stomach aflutter, and she sees the two pokeballs clipped to his belt winking in the sunlight. Already he has his first gym badge, because <em>'that gym leader couldn't handle me, oh no,'<em> and she sees for the first time that his trainer case is no longer empty. It makes her nervous, but she suppresses this with a soft smile and silence, because she never was good with words. Of course, Pearl talks enough for the both of them, and he's never found her lack of vocals of detriment before.

He convinces her to return home with him, and she hesitates. They've been free all of two weeks, and he's content to yank her back behind prison bars. Nevertheless, she's lured with siren songs of 'legendary pokemon of the lake.' She's all but forgetten that she promised Lucas to meet with him to bustle through Oreburgh gate together. She's never understood why, but something in Pearl's smile always injects jelly into her knees, the mischief in his blue eyes clashing with the nervous upward twist of her lips. He has a talent for making the dominoes fall exactly how he wants them to.

She loves, and hates, that quality about him. In the end, she agrees, and they jet off, his footfalls falling steadily farther and farther ahead of her own.

* * *

><p>Lake Verity is inaptly named, Dawn soon remembers – oh, but it's been years since she last visited. In fact, Dawn has only been once in the sixteen years she's lived in Twinleaf. Cold gray water laps bleakly at the obsidian shore, dense fog growing steadily thicker before their eyes. She recalls swimming here years ago, remembers the burn of oxygen-deprived lungs, the unfeeling grasp of lakeweed ensnaring her feet. Pearl had saved her that day – she remembers the grip of his arm around her waist, liquid metal against her skin.<p>

Pearl chatters away, until he spots it too; a blue tuft above the white froth of the breaking waves. A man, gaunt-faced and pale like a salamander, who sets her skin on edge. She can't breathe, can't think, but Pearl reads none of this on her face; he's too enthralled with the man upon the lake edge. His blue eyes widen, jaw growing slack – Dawn has never seen him so speechless.

When the man slinks between them, he pays neither any heed, though Pearl's eyes trace his movements like a child, watching to learn how to live.

Dawn registers the way Pearl's movements follow that head of blue hair; an indescribable look blossoming deep within his eyes.

* * *

><p>Dawn pretends she doesn't notice how all their conversations lead back to one azure focal point, and instead stirs her tea quietly, staring into its depths as the milk and cream disperse. Instead of allowing his words to lacerate her skin, to burrow beneath it, she vainly mutes his speech to a dull hum, relishing the tone instead, the honeyed sounds babbling from between his lips.<p>

Pearl and the man – Cyrus, so she's told – run into one another deep in the heart of Mt. Coronet, and have an off-handed, one-sided conversation about the world, as Cyrus views it. Incomplete, inadequate, deplorable. The blond can't put it from his mind, and for weeks, it's all he talks about. He prattles on about the nature of the bluenet in a spaceman costume, the deep, thoughtful timbre of his voice. Pearl talks about how he's heard gossip from all over about this cult called Team Galactic, who bear the same insignia emblazoned across their chests. Pearl's eyes take on a dreamy glaze, palm catching his drooping chin as his avalanche of consonants and vowels halt. It sets her chest to flambé, an exquisite, fragile pain. She knows who he's thinking of, staring idly at his saucer. The plate is illustrated with clefable and togekiss, entwined together in a celestial spiral amongst the supernovas. Her trembling hands raise her teacup to her lips.

She asks him what he thinks of Cyrus and his far-fetched tales, and Pearl shrugs, a tell-tale rose staining his cheeks.

"I dunno. Maybe he's onto something."

* * *

><p>Time passes and Pearl becomes introspective, a development that instills currents of anxiety into Dawn's stomach.<p>

They meet many more times, Pearl and the spaceman, and Dawn is unable to draw anything from her best friend, except cryptic responses she hasn't the energy to decode. It's become his duty in life, to lay siege to the decidedly dastard plots of Team Galactic. Months pass, unmarked except for the occasional glimmer deep within Pearl's eyes at the mention of legendary pokemon and outfits of chrome.

She finds it difficult to strike conversation with him. The wide-eyed boy set on barreling his way through the Elite Four is long gone now, an austere substitute in his place. She pretends she doesn't notice his tendency to glance behind him when they walk together, or the way his gaze flickers to flashes of blue, the nervous tick in his motions, as if he feels his every movement is somehow incorrect. On a whim, she flips through his memo pad, and is unsurprised to see snatches like 'galactic,' 'legend of Sinnoh,' and 'Cyrus' on nearly every page.

When she confronts him the only way she knows how, eyes glued to the ground and cheeks burning hot beneath sad blue eyes, Pearl sighs quietly and looks out over Sunyshore, placidly observing cerulean ocean sloshing against pale, rocky sand.

It begins to click into place, why Pearl follows Cyrus in much the way Dawn follows him. Cyrus represents adventure, conquest; all that Pearl's ever wanted. And as always, she watches him leave her behind in the villa they share together far above the shores of the solar city. For it's the way of the universe, for her to forever follow in his footsteps.

She's long since taught herself to say goodbye, but it doesn't stop her tears as they stream across her face.

* * *

><p>There comes a point when all the coy silence in the world does nothing but antagonize Pearl.<p>

They stand on their balcony, eyes hurling daggers carelessly into the other, words bubbling, sticking to their tongues because neither wants to take the final step into floorless, bottomless air. It's been building for months, like too much tension on an extension cord. Sooner or later, Dawn knows her will is doomed to snap. Here, standing before the most important person in the world to her, everything snaps harshly into place.

She's in love with him. She knows this now, because she can't bear to lie to herself anymore, now that Pearl does enough for the both of them. Oh, how she is so desperately in love with him. But this traitor, this emotionless thing, isn't the boy with fiery eyes and dreams sky-rocketing to the trophosphere. If she had a clefairy, she'd wish to it, whisper in its ear tales of Twinleaf from long ago, before either of them ever began training. But all she has is a nervous stomach, and finite moments left with Pearl before...

His face is impassive, an emotionless plane that contrasts starkly with the dark flush of hers, the way her eyebrows knit low on wide blue eyes glossed over with tears. For the first time in her life, she can't censor herself, and her voice cracks as she stumbles over his name. "P-Pearl…"

"My name isn't Pearl," he shoots at her, and she can't pretend to understand.

"You're killing me," she whispers, choking over the words, teeth chattering in the gusts of glacial updrafts from the city below. "You may not mean to, but _I can't stand seeing you this way_."

His lips twist terribly, a sick caricature of the simple boy's smile from long ago.

"_Then don't look at me, idiot_."

* * *

><p>She spends months after that night avoiding contact with him as much as possible. She doesn't bother looking through the belongings of Pearl (or whatever his name is), because what she fears finding will surely kill her faster.<p>

It breaks her heart, living that way, but Lucas comes to visit, and they sit in the foyer that smells like Pearl and discuss anything but. The brunet has learned to tiptoe around delicate subjects where Dawn is involved. Luckily, there is only one such subject.

It's deplorable, using Lucas as a rung to catapult herself from one calendar square to the next, but she doesn't care. She takes his hand in hers, and disregards the colour on his cheeks. He's auxiliary, supportive, and provides the structure she so desperately needs.

But when Rowan sends word that Team Galactic has ascended Mt. Coronet, Lucas can't stop her from leaving. Dawn races, stumbles, and prays she isn't too late.

* * *

><p>There aren't words to describe the agony of what greets her at Spear Pillar.<p>

She should have seen it coming long ago, when she first saw the longing bloom in his gaze. Pearl stands at Cyrus's right, extremities sheathed in a thin layer of silver, the scarcest traces of pale blue remaining in the black discs of his eyes. This final injustice breaks her, and she can't hold back the shock wave that ripples through her body. Gales of frosty air ricochet between the crumbling pillars; half-formed towers jutting upward like blades from the marble foundation. The silence of the mountain is tumultuous. Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn hover a few feet behind, eyeing the other trio in silent apprehension.

"Pearl?" Dawn whispers, barely audible, but his years of listening hard to decipher her quiet voice weren't for nothing.

His smile stretches horribly across his face, slicing through skin to reveal perfect white teeth. "It isn't Pearl anymore. My name is Mercury."

Mercury, he says, and it's so ironic, that he would be bestowed the name closest to the sun, closest to hope and light. Pearl has always teetered at the edge of greatness, drawn to fame and wealth and everything he deserved. Cyrus is the galactic sun about which the commanders and their grunts revolve. Pearl's name places him as close to the Galactic boss's husk of a heart as possible.

And now, Dawn is faced with the ultimate decisionl ironically, the same decision his actions in Twinleaf coerced her into almost two years ago – sink, or swim. She doesn't know if she can swim without Pearl's arms wrapped around her waist. In a way, she wishes he'd left her to drown at the bottom of Lake Verity all those years ago, but that was back when goodness was a staple for Pearl.

In the end, her morality wins over – as for her, it always does. Dawn raises a trembling hand to her waist, fingers grazing over the rounded capsules that represent her training, and strength. She can imagine the confusion on her companions' faces when they'll see who they're confronting – the same familiar friends they've grown up with for as long as they can remember. She feels her heart split a little further down the middle – she's half-surprised the others can't hear it, too. "I can't let you do this," she manages, sounding much stronger than she is. "Pearl, please."

For the first time in months, she sees through his mask as the briefest glimmer of something weak and suppressed flickers across his gaze. Within milliseconds, it's gone violently, so quickly she's not sure if it was ever there in the first place. He clutches the ball she knows to hold his Torterra and smiles – the image so vicious and so wide, it makes the nerves along her spine positively crawl.

"'_Til death do us part... huh, Dawn_?"


End file.
